Foreign

In a sign of the times, both of this weekend's top openers--Alex Gibney's Scientology expose "Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief" (HBO, March 29) and the acclaimed horror film "It Follows" (Radius) --are slated for near-term home viewing.

'Timbuktu' could win the foreign Oscar. Why? Director Abderrahmane Sissako, an elegant filmmaker who was educated in Moscow and has lived in Paris for decades, went home to film this simple, intimate and immediate story set in Timbuktu, which was overrun by Libyan jihadists for a time.

This weekend despite Yom Kippur and competition from hot-button "Gone Girl," several new films opened well. But not fairly wide release "The Good Lie," which was well-reviewed and played well to those who showed up, or limited multiple "Men, Women and Children," which did neither.